25 Jun 2012

Blood Mountain launches Conversation Series with Slavs and Tatars

Blood Mountain is pleased to announce its new Conversation Series, which brings leading thinkers and makers of the international arts community to Hungary and the region of Central Europe.

The programme provides a forum for discourse with a diverse group of people on varied topics. Its ambition is to share the brilliant discussions that happen in a private capacity at Blood Mountain with the broader public. Presented as one-off evening salons, it is the first time that the Foundation presents a public programme independent of its Artists-in-Residence, Education and Special Projects. The Conversation Series launches in July 2012 and will continue on a bi-monthly basis.

The launch event by Slavs and Tatars is a multi-platform look at two modern moments, 1979 and 1989, as bookends to the major geopolitical narratives of the 20th and 21st centuries: Communism and Islam. Entitled 79.89.09, the talk provides an apt introduction to the collective and its second cycle of work, Friendship of Nations: Polish Shi'ite Showbiz, on the unlikely common heritage between Poland and Iran in their respective drives towards self-determination. For more information, see project's namesake publication: www.slavsandtatars.com/79.89.09s&t.pdf

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

SLAVS AND TATARS is a faction of polemics and intimacies devoted to an area east of the former Berlin Wall and west of the Great Wall of China known as Eurasia. The collective's work spans several media, disciplines and a broad spectrum of cultural registers (high and low) focusing on an oft-forgotten sphere of influence between Slavs, Caucasians and Central Asians. After devoting the past five years to two key cycles of work, namely, a celebration of complexity in the Caucasus (Kidnapping Mountains, Molla Nasreddin, Hymns of No Resistance) and the unlikely heritage between Poland and Iran (Friendship of Nations: Polish Shi'ite Showbiz, 79.89.09, A Monobrow Manifesto), a new cycle of work was begun in late 2011 called The Faculty of Substitution, which has contributed to recent exhibition at the Tate Modern, London / Salt, Istanbul (Mystical Protest); GfZK (Reverse Joy), Lepizig; New Museum, New York (PrayWay); and solo engagements at the Secession, Vienna (Not Moscow Not Mecca); The Museum of Modern Art, New York (Beyonsense); Moravia Gallery of Brno (Khhhhhhh) and Kunstlerhaus Stuttgart. www.slavsandtatars.com

BLOOD MOUNTAIN FOUNDATION is an independent non-profit organisation working at he crossroads of contemporary art, architecture and design. Based in Budapest, our mission is to generate fresh discourse and to encourage the production of new work through curatorial and educational programmes, publications, artists-in-residence, public events and cross-disciplinary projects. Central to our objective is the belief that culture is an agent for social change and its open discourse and unrestricted practice are fundamental to the life of a participatory democracy. Blood Mountain was founded in 2010 by Hungarian-born curator, Jade Niklai and Australian industrial designer, Tom Sloan. www.bloodmountain.org

Public Transport: take bus 91/191/291 to 'Vérhalom utca' stop (4th in Buda) and
walk 5 minutes, or walk 15 minutess from 4/6 tram stop at Margaret Bridge (Buda side).

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

This is the last opportunity to view 'Edible Estates: #01-12', an exhibition by Blood Mountain's current artist-in-residence, Fritz Haeg.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

For high resolution images, interviews and other requests, please email info@bloodmountain.org or call +36.30.415.2123

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////